PRESS RELEASE

Launch of Vivekananda Yoga University (VaYU)

VaYU USA’s official website https://vayuusa.org/

As part of the 6^th International Day of Yoga celebrations, the world’s first yoga university outside India, Vivekananda Yoga University (VaYU), was jointly launched by Mr. V. Muraleedharan, Hon’ble Minister of State for External Affairs and Mr. P.P. Chaudhary, Chairperson, Standing Committee on External Affairs, in a virtual event on June 23, 2020.   The event was jointly hosted by Consulate General of India, New York and Jaipur Foot USA. Mr. Prem Bhandari, Chairperson, Jaipur Foot USA and founding director of VaYU,  and other prominent members of the community were also present on the occasion.

The announcement of courses by the university came within three months of receiving official recognition from the Bureau for Private Post-secondary Education, California to offer yoga-based higher education programs in November 2019. SreeSreenath, Professor from Case Western University, has been named its President. Indian yoga guru Dr. H. R. Nagendra, Chancellor of Swami Vivekananda Yoga AnusandhanaSamsthana (SVYASA) is the first Chairman of VaYU. 

Founded on the principles of Swami Vivekananda’s prescription for universal welfare, VaYU will offer online graduate programs based on scientific principles and modern research approaches to the ancient Indian practice of yoga. VaYU faculty has been recruited from Swami Vivekananda Yoga AnusandhanaSamsthana (SVYASA) – the first Yoga university in India. VaYU will facilitate collaborative research, credit transfers and joint programs with multiple premier universities across the world.

In his virtual live message, Hon’ble Minister of State for External Affairs expressed his gratitude to Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for making yoga a universal activity. He also noted that Yoga has become a large movement that even with COVID-19 restrictions, International Day of Yoga was celebrated with great aplomb across the world.

The university will help thousands of yoga teachers in the US whose yoga education was limited to 200 or 500 hours of certificate programs to progress further into university-based higher education, remarked Mr. P.P. Chaudhary. The efforts of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi who was instrumental in getting the UN declaration of International Day of Yoga on June 21^st to popularize Yoga will get a boost with the establishment of a Yoga university in the US, he said.

Sandeep Chakravorty, Consul General of India in New York, mentioned that New York has deep ties with Yoga. Swami Vivekananda’s journey bought him to New York where he lived many years and wrote books on Yoga. Many years later the resolution to commemorate International Day of Yoga was also passed by the U.N. in New York in 2015.

The university will offer online master's program in Yoga. The applications for fall 2020 semester are open with the first day of classes starting on August 24 in a virtual mode.

New York

June 23, 2020